The Dragon Who Loved Me (Dragon Kin #5)(76)

Briec smiled. When posts were stil getting through, he’d often get sweet little drawings from Rhian with always the same message at the top. Yet this . . . this was different. She usual y drew horses or birds or the castle she lived in. But this was just . . . symbols.

Why was she drawing him symbols? Symbols that he vaguely—very vaguely—remembered.

He smoothed out the parchment on the ground. Yes. He did recognize at least one of the symbols. From his Dragonmage training days, when he thought that immersing himself in books and Magicks would be his entire life. But the cal of the Dragonwarrior had overshadowed it and that was the way he’d headed. Yet he stil remembered things. Like this symbol. It was incredibly old. And, if memory served, incredibly powerful.

“Where? Where do I know this from?”

Briec took his talon and fol owed the patterns on the parchment. The drawings looped and swirled around the page, and as Briec’s talon moved over the images, they began to lift off the parchment. They came alive, growing in size and swirling around him. He watched in fascination, the images moving faster and faster while growing brighter and brighter until Briec could no longer stand to look at them. Until he could no longer see.

Until the screaming had him sitting up straight with a roar.

Panting, he opened his eyes and looked straight at his brother.

“Fearghus?”

“Briec?”

Briec looked around. He was no longer on that lonely piece of land. He was in the cave, the sounds of an ongoing assault from siege weapons a welcome sound to his bored ears.

“Thank the gods. What a shit dream.” He smiled, but his brother just kept staring at him, saying nothing. Then Ragnar ran in, several of the healers behind him. And then they al stared at him, too.

“What? Why are you al looking at me?” When no one answered, he stood, which made them al gawk at him more. “What? ” When they still didn’t answer, he shook his head.

“I’m getting something to eat. I’m hungry.” He eased past them, not sure why they were al gawking, not sure he even wanted to ask. He could find out later . . . when they al regained the power of speech.

Fearghus pointed at where his brother had laid, near death, and then at where he’d just walked out. “How . . . ?” Ragnar shook his head. “I don’t know. You saw him, Fearghus. His back was . . . was . . .”

“Fucked. That’s the terminology we use among our kin. His back was f**ked.”

“Yes. I didn’t think he’d survive, much less . . .”

“Walk. But then how . . . ?”

“I don’t know,” Ragnar told him gravely. “And perhaps we don’t want to know what dark forces have your brother healed and walking as if nothing had happened.”

Rhian released her cousins’ hands and smiled. “That was fun!”

“That was boring,” Tal y complained. Then she glared at her cousin. “And we stil don’t have our swords.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“But that doesn’t bring back our swords!” Tal y pointed a warning finger. “And don’t you cry, ya big baby!”

“I am not a baby!”

The door to the smal room they were in on the top floor of the castle opened and Ebba walked in. She scowled down at them. “How . . . when did you . . .” She stamped her foot and whispered, “How do you keep getting away from me?” Rhian and Tal y just stared at Ebba, and Talan . . . wel , Talan yawned and was asleep before his head landed comfortably in Rhian’s lap. Either someone’s lap or some dog’s back were usual y his favorite places for naps.

Annwyl didn’t sleep that night. Then again, she didn’t sleep much anymore. No matter how exhausted she was, the task of closing her eyes and sleeping was lost to her.

She missed sleeping. She missed shutting everything in her mind off for a few hours. Yet somehow her body kept going, though she didn’t understand how that was possible. She should be dead on her feet, but she kept going.

Then again, she was being pushed, wasn’t she? Always pushed.

When she heard people and dragons moving about, she guessed it was morning and went in search of some place to bathe. Izzy, after handing her some bread and cheese, told her she’d found an underground lake, but Annwyl had just nodded at that. She hadn’t been in the mood to find it.

She hadn’t been in the mood to feel water on her skin. Instead she stood in the middle of that big cavern and waited. Waited for the Rebel King to do what she needed him to do.

Yet when morning final y came she stil hadn’t gotten her way. So with time quickly running down, Annwyl searched out that lake. She was vaguely aware that, as she walked along, human and dragon alike moved out of her way. No one wanted to get near the “crazed queen.” There was a time Annwyl would laugh at that kind of reaction. She was only as crazy as she needed to be to get the job done, she’d often tel her mate. But these days, Annwyl was beginning to feel as crazy as everyone thought she was.

Probably the loss of sleep. She was pretty sure one needed sleep, a good sleep, to function properly. How could she expect to function properly when she couldn’t sleep? When they wouldn’t let her sleep. Why wouldn’t they let her sleep?

Annwyl found the lake and stripped off her clothes and dived in. She scrubbed her scalp, realizing she stil had bits and pieces of the Sovereign soldiers who’d taken her stuck in her hair and on her body. Her original plan had been to kidnap the commander of one of the Sovereign units and find out the information she needed to track down Gaius, but she had to al ow herself to be taken instead. That’s what she’d been told to do.